US politics terminology

Politics International Politics
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Ok, I admit it. US politics leave me confused…just like anyone I suppose! Please help me to understand a few differences between US and UK politics.

George W - Republican (I quote Merriam-Webster " connected with or supporting a system of government which is not led by a king or queen")

John Kerry - Democrat (M-W again “someone who believes in, or works to achieve democracy”).

I really hope I’ve got those around the right way!

What I can’t get my head around is which equivalent party they would be in the UK. My guess is Republican=Conservative (Left) , Democrat=Labour(Right). Or is it not that simple to put the four parties into similar boxes?

What is a “Run off” election? Is this what we call “Local elections” in the UK. Where we vote for local government members, not Blair or Maggie or Sreaming Lord Sutch :loco:

What is a “Primary” Election? I really have no idea about this one.

Also, we only ever hear about the two main parities, do the States have any others like our Liberal or Green?

Any help would be appreiciated…

L :smiley:

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And “Fascist” ought to mean “united, like a bundle of sticks.” But words take on a life of their own.

Both parties of course accept both principles (democracy + republicanism). While the Republicans lean more to the right, and the Democrats to the left, both parties contain many moderates, and in any case, “politics makes strange bedfellows.”

Probably Bush–Tory, Kerry–Labour. But as you suspect, it’s not that simple, since British political parties encourage a different sort of person to rise to the top (and say different things once he gets there). For example, I don’t believe Britain has anything like the religious right as a political force.

The most usual form is, if no one gets a majority, a second election is held with only the two top vote-getters. Some U.S. state governors are elected this way, though not the presidency. (Otherwise Nader and Perot wouldn’t matter so much.)

We have “local” elections as well (plus state elections, plus other strange things like school districts). These are unrelated to ones for national offices like U.S. senators and representatives.

The Democratic and Republican parties both choose their presidential nominees by having an election within their parties. These are huge, national affairs that are conducted state-by-state, so by the end the pool of candidates gets whittled down.

Yes. However, in a “first past the post” system their influence is muted. The Greens have a few state officials in Oregon, I believe, and otherwise are important mainly as spoilers and propagandists. There must be many hundreds of “third parties.” Besides the Greens, another important one was Ross Perot’s party, the…what was it called again? Anyway, they can only get election funds if in the last election, they got at least 5 % of the vote. (Last time neither did.)

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[quote=“Limey”]Ok, I admit it. US politics leave me confused…just like anyone I suppose! Please help me to understand a few differences between US and UK politics.

George W - Republican (I quote Merriam-Webster " connected with or supporting a system of government which is not led by a king or queen")

John Kerry - Democrat (M-W again “someone who believes in, or works to achieve democracy”).

I really hope I’ve got those around the right way![/quote]
Yep, you do. The party names don’t really mean much in and of themselves. There was, after all, a “Bull Moose Party” once upon a time. :loco: And there are others, such as the Taxpayers’ Party, which obviously don’t include everyone who pays taxes.

The Democrats are probably closer to your Socialist Workers party. :stuck_out_tongue: I don’t think you have an equivalent of the Republicans; even the Conservatives aren’t as conservative, from what I understand.

[quote=“Limey”]What is a “Run off” election? Is this what we call “Local elections” in the UK. Where we vote for local government members, not Blair or Maggie or Sreaming Lord Sutch :loco:

What is a “Primary” Election? I really have no idea about this one. [/quote]
A “primary” is where, per party, one person is selected from a field of several who are running to represent that party in the main election. You might have two or three Democrats, two or three Republicans, and maybe a couple of Libertarians all wanting to run for the Fifth Congressional District seat in Washington state. So the primary election, which happens a few months before the main election, cuts that to one of each. For the recent Democratic presidential candidate nomination, there were at least ten candidates initially, and through various primaries, John Kerry was selected.

Runoffs are fairly uncommon in the U.S.; they are usually only in nonpartisan races, where a race requires a clear majority. So if three candidates are running for a position during the primary, and they split the vote 43-42-15, the top two will face each other during a runoff to see who gets at least 50.00001% of the vote.

Sure. There are the Libertarians, the Greens, the Taxpayers, the Constitutionalists, the Reform, the Populists, the Socialist Workers, the Revolutionary Socialist Workers, the Revolutionary Communists, the Communists, the National Socialist White People’s, and various local parties. I think some people have even been trying to form an offshoot of the Monster Raving Loony Party.

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:slight_smile: Thanks guys for clearing that up. I’ll be following the election with more confidence now!

L :smiley: